the purpose of Ethereum is to be as simple as possible. Even if this simplicity comes with the cost of data storage or inefficiency. Any optimization that adds complications should not be included unless that it provides a large benefit in return.

Ethereum's first pillar of design  

A fundamental part of Ethereum's design philosophy is that Ethereum does not have "features". Instead, Ethereum has internal Turing-complete scripting language. This can be used by a programmer  to construct any smart contract or transaction type that is able to be mathematically defined. These features allow for Ethereum to be as universal as possible.

Ethereum's second pillar of design

Ethereum's protocol should be as modular and separable as possible. An overarching  goal is to create a program where if one was to make a small protocol modification in one place, the application stack can continue to function without any further modification.

Ethereum's third pillar of design

Maintaining agility is key to Ethereum working to its highest level. Ethereum states, "computational tests later on in the development process may lead us to discover that certain modifications, e.g. to the protocol architecture or to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), will substantially improve scalability or security. If any such opportunities are found, we will exploit them." 


Ethereum's fourth pillar of design

Ethereum is not based upon morals or ethics. Ethereum should not attempt to restrict or prevent specific categories of usage, no matter the content. All regulatory mechanisms in the protocol should be designed to directly regulate the harm and not attempt to oppose specific undesirable applications.

Ethereum's fifth pillar of design

There are five main design pillars that Ethereum bases it self upon. 

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- Ethereum Accounts
- Transactions
- Messages
- Ethereum State Transition Function
- Code Execution
- Blockchain and Mining
- Ethereum's Functionality
- Ethereum's Design

Key Ethereum Terms

Buterin, Vitalik. (2013). A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized  

Application Platform. https://ethereum.org/en/whitepaper/


Ethereum Whitepaper

The term "transaction" is used in Ethereum to refer to the signed data package that stores a message to be sent from an externally owned  account (managed by a human) to another or to interact with a smart contract. 

Ethereums Messages and Transactions 

In Ethereum, the state is made up of objects called "accounts", with each account having a 20-byte address and state transitions being direct transfers of value and information between accounts. An Ethereum account contains four fields:

-The nonce, a counter used to make sure each transaction can only be processed once
-The account's current ether balance
-The account's contract code, if present
-The account's storage 

Ethereum Accounts 

As the goal of Ethereum is to create an alternative protocol for building decentralized applications, it creates an abstract foundational layer. This layer is a blockchain with its own Turing-complete programming language. This allows anyone to create smart contracts and decentralized applications where they can then create their own rules for ownership, transaction formats and state transition functions. 

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